Cruxer
Cruxer is a Blackguard and member of Kip Guile's squad: The Mighty. He is a blue/green bichrome drafter. When Kip joined the Blackguard training, Cruxer was ranked #1 in the class, out of 49. Cruxer is a one of the "legacies" in his and Kip's training group, along with Rig, Aram, and Tana. Fisk states that Cruxer is a third-generation Blackguard. He is a deeply religious young man, always making the sign of the seven, a salute to Orholam, before sparring matches during Blackguard training, and sometimes afterward as well. After The Mighty left the Chromeria to battle the Colour Prince in the Blood Forest Satrapy, Cruxer becomes the de-facto unit commander of the Mighty, as Kip steps into the role of general of the larger army. Along with Kip, Cruxer is The Mighty's main tactician and strategist, and is a natural leader. During battle, Cruxer wields a double-ended spear/polearm that is held together in the center with blue luxin, allowing him to quickly separate the two halves and use them as swords/daggers. Cruxer has a very deep-seated sense of honour, and will harshly (but not cruelly,) punish those who act dishonourably. During the final testing to determine who of the Blackguard trainees would move on to become Blackguards, it became apparent that there was a conspiracy to keep Kip from making the cut, orchestrated by Barrel, Balder, Erato, and Aram. For Aram, the leader of the group, this was even more dishonourable than the others because Aram is a fellow Blackguard legacy. Kip deduces and tells Cruxer and Teia that none of the conspirators are smart enough to have devised this plan, so someone else must have masterminded it and bribed the four trainees to carry it out (almost certainly Andross Guile, a fact which is later confirmed by Andross.) At the end of the fighting, Cruxer is ranked #1, Aram is in the top 14 who are slotted to move on, and Kip is ranked #15. In part as retribution for Aram's part in the conspiracy against a fellow Blackguard (trainee,) partly because Cruxer does not want someone in the Blackguard who would turn against his fellows for money, and partly to allow Kip to make the cut, he dispenses justice to Aram himself. As soon as the testing is declared over (i.e. as soon as he cannot be expelled for what he is about to do,) Cruxer delivers a lightning-fast, powerful kick to Aram's knee, breaking it by forcing it to bend backward, and crippling the knee. This knocks Aram out of the finalists, as well as ensuring that he will not be able to join the next Blackguard class, since such injuries will not heal properly and Aram will never be able to fight again. As a result, Kip is moved up to the fourteenth spot and joins the group of trainees who made the cut to become Blackguards. Immediately after crippling Aram, Cruxer says the following: "I've wanted to be a Blackguard since I could walk. I value this brotherhood too highly to let in a man who destroys unity rather than builds it, a man who takes money to destroy one of his own. If the cost to remove him from the Blackguard is that I, too, am expelled, so be it. ... Aram's the second best fighter in our class. He took money to finish low. He took money to keep Breaker out." In response to Cruxer revealing his crimes, Aram shouts that Kip is not "one of them" due to being Tyrean, and that he would have done it for free, in the process not only admitting to cheating, but to accept a bribe to do so. As a result, Aram is shamed, Cruxer retains his position as part of the group to move on to become Blackguards (and his first-place ranking,) and Kip is allowed to move on as well as the fourteenth trainee.